


all these sorrows I have seen

by magicandlight



Series: The States [21]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Statetalia
Genre: American Civil War, Angst, Kentucky/Tennessee is not the focus here, Local Author Tortures Her Characters Despite Complaints, M/M, Non-Chronological, Non-con kiss, Physical Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22111378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicandlight/pseuds/magicandlight
Summary: It ends with two dead nations, but only one of them gets back up.Sometimes, Tim wishes for the closure of a body to bury. A childish need for reassurance that they boogeyman is really dead. Later, he's glad there isn't one. He has nightmares were they bury Jackson and he claws his way back out.
Relationships: Kentucky/Tennessee (Hetalia)
Series: The States [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/788712
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	all these sorrows I have seen

It ends with two dead nations, but only one of them gets back up.

Sometimes, Tim wishes for the closure of a body to bury. A childish need for reassurance that they boogeyman is really dead. Later, he's glad there isn't one. He has nightmares were they bury Jackson and he claws his way back out. 

******

It begins with the Army of Northern Virginia surrendering at Appomattox. 

Ginny packs a single bag, and then she leaves. 

They're trapped by their own senses of loyalty. Not to Jackson, their sovereign nation, but to each other.

To leave is to abandon another to Jackson's resulting rage.

So they stay. 

But Ginny, _Virginia_ , mother of states, leaves. 

Maybe Jackson was afraid they all would. 

******

It begins like this: when he figures out Ginny's gone, Jackson breaks Caden's arm in three places. Austin sets it, pours himself two shots of bourbon, and then loads his rifle. 

And then he shoots Jackson three times, one for each break. 

And that is when their lives become living hells. 

******

"Should we- do something for him?" Ginny asks softly. "Some kind of headstone? I know he wasn't a good nation or even a good person, but-"

Austin stands so fast his chair falls back, the echo of the door slamming the only thing he leaves behind. 

"He doesn't _deserve_ to be remembered," Josh says, uncharacteristically harsh.

"No offense, Ginny, but you weren't there at the end." Tim keeps his eyes downcast. 

No, Ginny had been long gone before the end. She hadn't been there when Jackson had thrown a liquor bottle at Flora and gashed her face and her hand all to hell. When he'd slammed Austin into the wall until his head left a bloody dent, thrown Scarlett through the glass front of a cabinet when she'd tried to stop him, laughing when she pleaded for him to stop. 

None of them speak. 

******

It happens on a Thursday.

Jackson drains every drop of alcohol in the house. He breaks open Austin's locked medical box so he can drink the alcohol he'd kept for disinfectant and pain relief too.

It's an almost empty house, Flora upstairs with an infection-fever. Tim doesn't remember what he says or does to set Jackson off, but it must have been something, right?

It doesn't matter. The facts are that Tim did something and now Jackson's got his hands around his throat.

Tim pushes back, scratches at his fingers because there's only so long he can hold his breath and there's so many arteries in your neck, so many things that can go wrong-

Three things happen seemingly all at once: Jackson's hand tightens around his neck, Tim gasps for air, and Jackson slants his mouth over his.

The only person Tim's ever kissed is Kendall, and hysterically, the only thing that Tim can think about is how Jackson isn't good at this.

It tastes like blood and alcohol. 

If he had air left in his lungs he would sob. _This isn't real_ , Tim thinks. _This can't be real_.

His head feels like it's exploding. Tim's died an awful lot, but he's never been strangled before.

His vision has spots. He should be worried about that. He isn't. He should worry about the sudden calm he feels. He doesn't.

Jackson lets go, and Tim falls to the floor. 

Tim gasps for breath, hands closing protectively over his throat. 

There's blood all down his chin from where Jackson bit his lip.

He's still gasping for air when Jackson leaves, spitting a parting slur before he walks away. 

******

After, Tim curls up in Austin's closet and lets the smell of gunpowder comfort him. Tim's been shot too many times to ever like guns, but he won't deny the sense of security they bring. 

Austin, for his part, doesn't say a word about the black and blue scarf of bruises Tim's sporting around his throat. 

They all learned very quickly that sometimes it's better to endure silently than retaliate.   
  
******

It begins with Scarlett sobbing in the middle of the night, the twins on a battlefield somewhere far away. 

Scarlett has blood on her skirt where she'd stabbed the hand Jackson set on her thigh with a fork. Tim feels sick when he thinks about it, so he doesn't

"What does this say about us, that he's like this? He's parts of us. We all _made_ him." 

For the first time in years, decades even, Scarlett sounds afraid.

******

Daniel, David, Scarlett, Flora, and Tim are all there to see the surrender of the Army of Tennessee signed in Raleigh. They come home and get so drunk they don't talk or even think about where Jackson has gone to. Ignorance is bliss, and all that matters is he isn't there. 

Flora and Josh both leave before sunset the next day. 

******

It ends in May, the former Confederate states self-isolating in Daniel's room. None of them are really sure how to look their northern siblings in the eyes when they all felt the ripple of Alfred's and Jackson's deaths. 

Even before that, they didn't know how to quite look at them. The northerners came out of this with new scars, a handful of new traumas. The southerners came out of it completely different. 

Josh would probably never be that lovable asshole kid again. Evangeline was a paranoid mess. Caden used his body as a shield, always in front of Ev or Ginny. Scarlett looked like guilt ate her for breakfast every morning. The twins had fought. 

The list went on and on. They didn't have enough time to even begin to unpack all of it. 

Tim's afraid that Jackson damaged something irreparably in all of them. 

******

He's been avoiding Kendall because he doesn't know how to tell him about what happened. 

The others leave him be for a while- it'd be hypocritical not to. Austin's avoiding Addison just as much.

David is the one who eventually talks to him. "Alright, kid, what's with you avoiding Kendall? You've been glued to each other since your territory days and a civil war couldn't keep you apart, but now that you're under the same roof, you don't want to even look at him?"

Tim stares at the floor. The only one who knew anything about it was Austin, and Austin usually knew when to keep his mouth shut. 

He clutches as the necklace around his throat. "During. Towards the end, after Ginny- Jackson kissed me."

David goes still. 

"I. Didn't want him to?" Tim continues after a moment. "I did something, I made him mad and he had his hands around my throat and I couldn't breathe and then he kissed me-" Tim's breath is coming faster and faster.

"Tim."

Tim shuts his mouth with an audible click. 

David's eyes are as serious as Tim has ever seen. "I'll say this as many times as you need me to. It was _not_ your fault, nothing you could do would make you deserve to be assaulted. You didn't cheat on Kendall, if that's what you're thinking. Kendall will understand, and if he doesn't, I'm going to punch him."

David is completely matter-of-fact about the entire thing. 

Tim smiles. "Thanks."

******

Tim knocks softly on Kendall's door. It took two days to actually get up the nerve to talk to him, but better late than never. 

Kendall leans on the doorframe after he opens the door, and Tim is so in love with him it _aches_.

"Can we talk?" Tim asks softly, both because it's late and because he's afraid his voice might fail him if he tries to be any louder. 

There's a flicker of worry in Kendall's eyes, but he still nods and follows after Tim. 

They sit on the porch and Tim talks. Explains. 

Kendall is silent the entire time, and when Tim is done, he says, "Excuse me a moment," and goes back inside. 

Tim stares blankly at the door. 

He lets out the breath he'd been holding when Kendall comes back, shaking his hand a little. 

"I punched the wall," Kendall murmurs when Tim stares at him in confusion. "Not the most mature response, I know."

He cups Tim's face. "Can I kiss you?"

"Yes," Tim tells him, without a second of hesitation. 

They stay out on the porch until sunrise and Kendall kisses him so thoroughly that for the first time, Tim thinks he might forget the way Jackson's mouth had felt. 

******

It ends with Scarlett lighting bundles of sticks on fire and dropping them on the floor of the house they'd lived in for four years. 

The war has been over for five years. There's nothing left in the house worth saving. They'd all gone through what was left and made their peace with it, no matter how fragile. 

Ginny spreads out blankets over the driveway, and the eleven former Confederate states sit together and watch the house burn to the ground. 

**Author's Note:**

> title from Dream by Imagine Dragons  
> Non-consensual kissing is actually sexual assault, but I was hesitant to put that in the tags as sexual assault because most people go assault=rape.


End file.
